Re-victimization:
When I was in fourth grade, we moved to a small community, where, if your ancestors did not get off the same boat as their ancestors, you were forever an outsider. I was the youngest in class. Bullies, especially the ones held back a year, love to pick on runts and outsiders. Actually, they will pick on anyone they can as long as they can get away with it. Come to think of it, sexual predators are like that, too.
So far, we have looked at what it means to be healthy, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs giving us a way of prioritizing our needs. We have looked at how the human can be injured in different ways, and we have looked briefly at how one becomes vulnerable with some risk factors.
In this second section, I want to investigate re-victimization.
Re-victimization takes two forms. The first is by the same perpetrator abusing the victim multiple times. The second is when others pile on. Re-victimization by others will be discussed in the next chapter. In this chapter, I will discuss briefly the pain of being hit multiple times by the same person.
Physical Remember the little girl who hit me on the shoulder and asked “did that hurt?” even if it did not hurt the first time, it hurts over time. Let’s say the first time she hit me she damaged three cells in my shoulder. Three is hardly noticeable. But the second time, she damaged three more, then three more after that. After the twentieth time she hit me, the damage is sixty cells. A few capillaries, and maybe a couple of nerve endings. That is a small amount of physical damage.
Let’s say I am building something and while I am building it I hit my thumb with the hammer. Suddenly, I notice that holding nails is more painful than it was before. Let’s think about this. Before I hit my thumb, I could hold a nail without any problem. Afterword, every time I touch the damaged area, pain signals remind me that there is damage in the area. What I used to be able to handle, I can no longer tolerate. The gentle pressure of holding a nail between my thumb and finger now compresses damaged cells and damaged nerve endings. The result is a request by my thumb to reduce usage until the damage is corrected.
That was Physical. What happens when we are injured emotionally? We take a walk to explore the new neighborhood, expecting to find new friends. Our emotional thumbs get smashed and we find we can no longer hold onto the friends we once held with ease.
But Wait! There’s more! During trauma, the brain releases chemicals.hese chemicals act as switching devises turning on and off large portions of the brain. This inhibits our cognitive process and rewires our brains.
Psychological: I heard the way to train an elephant to not wander off is to tie a chain to its hind leg when it is young. Tie one end of a stout chain to its leg and the other end to a tree. The young elephant will struggle against that chain for all it’s worth. After a while, it will give up, understanding it cannot get away. Once it has learned this, a thin rope can hold it even when set to the ground with a small peg. We are like this. We try to fly a few times, then after a number of bumps and bruises, we give up. Our psyche has been trained to believe it is useless to try pulling that little stake out of the ground.
Cognitive: Learning is cumulative. We build our knowledge based on what we already know. What if we learn something that is false? When I was young, I did not know that the earth revolved around the sun. I sat in my yard, I noticed the sun came up in the east and went down in the west. The moon did the same thing. It was quite a shock to learn the earth was not the center of the universe. Then again, it may be quite a shock for some people to learn they are not the center of the universe. I know of some politicians who still do not know this.
I grew up learning inches and foot-pounds. I know what a meter is only because sometimes I use the metric system. I have a feel for distance in both English units and in the metric. In steam, I work with boilers, we still use pounds per square inches of pressure. However, when I went to school for engineering, they used terms like kips and Pasqual’s. These are theoretical terms for me. I still do not know what a Pasqual feels like. I have conversion charts, but I have no feel for these.
I watch learning channels where time and time again we are told something is millions of years 0ld. I wish the educators would tell us what part of what they are teaching is fact and what part is guesswork. If they would only be honest and say “We found these bones in this rock alongside this riverbed…” and let us do the thinking. Instead, they say, this is a bone and you are to believe it is this old without us telling you why we think that or telling us what assumptions were made to come to that conclusion.
I once went to a cave in the east where the guide took us down some steps into the dark. He said, “Everything was original except those stairs which were built in 1935.” He turned on lights and pointed to a stalagmite telling us it was millions of years old. I turned around to the stairway we just came down. There was another stalagmite growing on the stairs. My question was “How come this stalagmite growing on top of the seventy year old concrete stairway is the same size as the million year old stalagmite? Wouldn’t they grow at the same rate?” We must be careful of what we are told.
Sexual: The entertainment industry entices us with fast cars and loose woman – or is it fast woman and loose cars. Love and sex is everywhere. Is this fact or fiction? What is the truth about love and sex? What happens behind the scenes? What happens off camera? Not much of Hollywood is real.
Spiritual: I have already mentioned there is only one religion that offers forgiveness. There is only one that has a Savior. There is only one that offers a personal relatonship with the creator. All other religions require us to do something in order to earn a higher place in the hierarchy of life. It takes a lifetime to unlearn false doctrine and to learn truth. Pilot once asked Jesus, “What is truth?” He did not know that just a few hours earlier, Jesus had told his disciples, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.” Truth is a person. How can a man or woman remain pure? My greatest goal in life was to protect my children so they would not go through what I went through. Unfortunately, I was not successful and now they also must deal with the struggle of overcoming the damage they have faced.
Financial: Here I am thinking of how we can be damaged in these areas, while I think of paragraphs of damage — unemployment, for example, fines and taxes for another — I am writing only a portion of what I am thinking. I trust you are also thinking of all the ways I am leaving out – Intentionally leaving out.
I know you have your own story. I know you have received damage I have not listed or charted. I do not want to list all the damage. My intention is for you to think about your damage so you can write your own book. Or fill in the blank pages that I did not include. I want you to go from victim to survivor: from survivor to recovery, then beyond recovery. I was touched by destruction once forty years ago – and self-destruction several times since then. My journey may be rougher than yours … or it may not be as rough. It does not matter. What is important is your journey. How have you… How has God taken you through this damage, offered healing, so you can become and reach your fullest potential? Most of this damage is temporary. Some is not. So how are you going to overcome the damage? Repair what you can, trust God with the rest, and learn to achieve your fullest potential.
Relational: Again, we have the little girl with the punches. But I have noticed one thing: We hurt the ones we love the most. This is because they trust us and depend on us. The greater this trust and dependence, the greater the potential of hurting. When a father is entrusted with keeping his daughter safe, when a friend turns and attacks, when this attack occurs again and again.
Social: What happens when a society lies to us? What if the entire society is so damaged or sick that we grow up knowing only lies? In our society there is an emphasis on sexual exploration. This has nothing to do with higher level of sexuality required for healthy procreation, rather it is an animalistic “feels good” kneejerk response to hormonal stimuli. It’s like taking a car designed for the Indi 500 out for a joyride across the Baha dessert.
Environmental: Imagine how we can become damaged in these areas. Then let’s figure out how we can overcome the damage and become healthy again.
When does one stop being vulnerable? Obviously, the younger a person, the more vulnerable one is. Can a three year old fight off the advances of a parent? What about a twelve year old? Even a twenty-three year old can become a victim – especially when drugs and alcohol are used.
You will recall I mentioned an automobile crash has three collisions. The auto hitting something. The human bodies inside the auto hitting the auto, and the internal organs hitting each other.
The same thing happens on all levels of the human being after emotional trauma. There is the initial trauma. Say someone calls you a name. Self-esteem plummets. Vulnerability increases. Someone else may come along and without realizing it, add to the damage. Suddenly, what started as a good day becomes a bad day and soon nothing goes right.
Maybe you stub your toe or twist your ankle. Now, it is hard to walk. Smash your finger and that finger is sore and sensitive to the slightest pressure or touch. What you could do before becomes painful.
Abuse is this way. The initial trauma may be nothing. But continued abuse adds up. Have you ever noticed people like to pick on certain people? Why is that? Because of the reaction they get? An injured person becomes a target. Vultures like to circle, hoping for a taste of meat. The wing of the injured bird has been broken and the cat wants an easy meal.
The little girl punches me in the arm until it becomes painful. One punch is fine, but the constant repetition of punches becomes a bruise that lasts for weeks. On the wall of the domestic violence center are t-shirts. This is part of the clothesline project. Victims of abuse make t-shirts saying whatever they want. It is part of the healing process. What I wrote are the two poems at the introduction. These t-shirts are seldom worn and they may circulate to other towns. One T-shirt reads, “My dad raped me between the ages of 2 and 9.” Let’s look at Maslow:
Level four is esteem needs. This includes responsibility, achievements, reputation and status. Here Character is born and developed. People respond to this character. What happens to esteem as a result of rape or if not rape, verbal abuse? What if a parent simply says daily, “You are no good;” “You are a lazy, good for nothing ….” “You will never amount to anything.” Such verbal abuse could also come from siblings or spouses. We now have several scenarios giving us a wide range of possibilities. If the esteem is attacked, the motivation to achieve is diminished. The potential to shrivel up into withdrawal increases. Opportunity to excel is reduced. Maybe we pile onto ourselves, adding to the abuse by telling ourselves that we are no good and will never amount to anything. The victim is hardly in a position to say, “No, you did that yesterday, I am not going to let you do that again.”
I watched a friend at work as some guy was picking on her. Actually, it happened far enough away that I did not notice it. Later, she told me how she despises him and that he irritates her. Some people look for soft spots and dig in. I don’t talk to my x-wife because she does that to me. I am not able to separate her lies from facts and it is simply better for me not to hear anything she says. Can rape happen without damaging level four esteem? In isolation, I thought so. But how many times have you heard someone say, “I felt dirty?” The damage came from others. But maybe not. Maybe I was damaged here without knowing it. Let’s get serious. If I had not been so terribly damaged, I would have recognized the damage between myself and my love and would have been able to correct it. But because I was damaged I had no confidence to approach her to figure out what had happened. Something happened so deep, I was absolutely unaware of the damage. Like an internal injury from a car accident. It did not show up until later.
The third layer in this pyramid is Belonging and Love needs”: Family, friends, work groups, relationships, and affection. How can a child know that rape is not love but the ultimate in selfishness? How can a child say, “Do not use me like this. What I need is to know that I am important to you as my father or mother and that you will help me learn my full potential as a human being.” I wonder why incest leads to extreme confusion. The basic need is for genuine love from family and friends. Sexual involvement at these levels precludes that needed love. How can a person show love when they are using you?
The second category, before these basic needs are met, is Safety. These include order, stability, limits, security, protection and law. Where the first category allows you to survive, this second category adds comfort. Through this comfort, one has the opportunity to grow.
The perpetrator/abuser, may withdraw food, water, clothing. If drugs are involved, getting a person hooked on drugs is certainly an abuse, withholding the drugs later is another abuse. Manipulating a person to have sex with others, is not safe or protecting that person. The abuse the victim of sexual predators or sexual traffickers inflict is great. It strikes at the very foundation of our needs.
Abuse of any kind, coming from the family, strikes at the very basic needs of a person. The damage is severe but not insurmountable. Many have learned how to overcome this damage and have gone on to reach their full potential.
Revictimization from others